Seven Surprising Effects of Obesity

Obesity gives rise to deadly diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, stroke and heart disease. Obesity can also cause sleep apnoea. The fat in your neck can obstruct your air passages and make you snore, thus making you lose precious oxygen during sleep and giving rise to further deadly diseases.

Yet even though people are becoming more aware that obesity is bad for health, people are still loading themselves with more. Thus, to intensify the campaign against obesity, one article published at abcnews.go.com talks about the seven surprising effects of obesity.

First, obesity leads to more cancers. According to the US National Cancer Institute, there are 34,000 new cases of cancer in men and 50,000 in women each year associated with obesity. It is said that excess fat cells can increase hormonal activity or they increase growth factors that lead to tumor growth.

Second, infertility increases with fat. Women who are overweight often have a harder time getting pregnant. Some of these women develop polycystic ovarian disease, a condition associated with infertility. Obesity is also said to be an inflammatory state and that alone might decrease fertility.

Thirdly, obesity can increase the risk for premature births. A new Journal of the American Medical Association study found that obesity increases a woman's chance of having a preterm baby, especially when her body mass index is 35 or higher.

Fourth, obesity can make you lose sleep. Obesity can lead to sleep apnoea, which  leads to a lot of deadly diseases. Sleep apnoea is a condition in which a person stops breathing momentarily while asleep. Sleep apnoea can be caused by increased fat around the neck area that presses down and closes off the soft tissues of the airways while a person is lying down.

Fifth, obesity can cause bullying and can lead to lower self-esteem, higher levels of depression and increased risk of suicide. Unfortunately, obese people experience ridicule from families and loved ones.

Sixth, obesity can be a source of prejudice in the doctor’s office. In one study, about 50 percent of doctors found that fat patients were "awkward, ugly, weak-willed and unlikely to comply with treatment" while 24 percent of nurses said they were repulsed by their obese patients. Also, people are less apt to follow doctor's orders and more likely to switch to a new provider if their physician is overweight.

A George Washington University School of Public Health study also found a connection between greater obesity and smaller wages. It is said that obese people are poorly paid compared to their skinnier counterparts.

You can read more here:

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/obesitys-surprising-effects/story?id=19376609